Going Astray
by Kegel
Summary: Greg is kidnapped again! Who is behind this evil deed?
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer:** If I owned CSI, there'd really be another spin-off called 'CSI: Poughkeepsie - Nerds with Badges' featuring Greg and Ryan, as Jonathan Togo suggested. :P_

_**Summary:** Greg is kidnapped (again!) Who is behind this evil deed? _

_**Rating:** K+_

_**A/N:** Well, Emmithar advised me to mention that this story is not to be taken seriously. The question that comes up for me there is of course, if any of my stories are to be taken seriously. :P _

_This didn't quite turn as I had hoped, but I couldn't resist writing it for the use of the crazy ideas from Em who is mainly to blame for this. ;) Thanks also for the beta:D_

* * *

**Going Astray - Part 1**

Dark and menacing fell the night over Las Vegas – well, not really dark because of all the lights in the city, but menacing enough – when Greg Sanders was on his way to work. He was early as his boss had called him to come in, without actually telling him why.

When Greg had parked his car near the lab and was getting out of it, he saw suddenly brown hair vanishing behind a car. Approaching the spot where the person had been that he had thought he had seen, he did not really pay attention to the black van that had pulled up behind the car.

Greg stepped around the vehicle, looking where the person had gone, when a door of the van suddenly opened. He was grabbed and pulled into the vehicle, muffled at the same time and it was soon that he did not know anything anymore.

* * *

Greg woke up in darkness. It did not take him long to figure out that the darkness was a result of him being blindfolded, additionally to the fact that his hands were bound behind his back while he was sitting on a chair. 

When he lifted his head, he heard the voice of a woman and it sounded awfully familiar.

"Well, Greg, how are you feeling?"

"Not too good," he answered truthfully, trying to force his brain to come up with the correct name to associate the familiar voice with. All he knew for sure was that is was a voice he was afraid of. Was it the old lady in the neighboring flat? Nope. His elementary school teacher? Nope. The dentist? Nope.

Just when another name was lighting up in his head, the blindfold was removed and Greg noticed that his last idea had been right.

"Catherine."

"Yeah, it's me," the blonde woman smiled, holding the flashlight in her hand this way so that Greg could see her, while he did not see anything else of the room that hid in darkness.

"Why are you doing this?" Greg inquired.

"You know too much."

Greg could only look puzzled at this statement.

"Really?" Catherine asked. "Okay, the real reason is that I don't have one-hundred percent of the screen time yet. You're standing in the way of reaching this goal. Once I've got your 0.3 percent, I will-"

Another voice spoke up out of the darkness. "Cath, this isn't only your work here, you know." Warrick stepped into the shine of Catherine's flashlight.

"Warrick!" Greg exclaimed, hope rising in him.

"Yeah," the other man nodded.

"Warrick, please help me. We're both victims here… once Catherine will have gotten rid of me, you'll be the next!"

Warrick did not have the chance to reply anything, as a third voice was sounding through the room.

"Well, Greggo, did you once again fall for me?" Sara smirked, approaching the group.

"Sara," Greg said unbelieving, recognizing the person he had been seeing and following, before he had been captured. "You were the bait!" he added.

Sara smiled. "You've always been a clever guy, Greg."

"Sara, you don't want to do this, please…" Greg pleaded.

"Somehow all this makes me feel queasy," another person said suddenly, sounding nervous.

Greg sighed relieved. "Nick! Finally a friend!"

Sara's brief protest was silenced by Catherine, and when Nick approached them, Greg addressed him again.

"Nick, you'll help me, won't you? We have a relationship, don't we?"

Nick shrugged. "This whole situation makes me nervous… kidnapping, darkness, blazing lights… I don't feel well…"

"It's over, Nick, it's over, remember?" yet another man's voice was heard.

Nick nodded bravely, muttering quietly to himself.

"Grissom," Greg stated, understanding dawning on him. "You're the mastermind of this."

"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them," Grissom quoted, not caring if it fitted or not. Then he looked around in the group, as if expecting somebody to say anything to this.

When nobody did so, Greg sighed, looking at the people who were assembled around him.

"What do you want with me?" he asked, when suddenly a cell-phone went off.

"Time to go, guys," Catherine announced. "Shift is going to start in fifteen."

Everybody was about to leave, when Greg called after them. "Hey, what's with me? My shift starts in fifteen as well."

Grissom stopped, turning back to Greg, while the others walked out of the room.

"It will be taken from your vacation time," he explained, before he walked off as well.

"That's highly unfair!" Greg said to an empty room.

_**TBC…**_

_Up next: _

_What does the CSI team want with Greg? Who will save him? Will it ever be over for Nick?_


	2. Chapter 2

_**Again thanks to Emmithar for the beta!**_

* * *

**Part 2**

The graveyard shift was going its normal course; nobody had noticed Greg's absence so far, as he was not important to the solving of cases anyway. It was halfway through shift, when Grissom suddenly called all his investigators into his office. He had needed someone for an experiment and that was when he noticed that Greg was gone.

Few minutes later all his CSIs were assembled in his office.

"What has happened, Gil?" Catherine wanted to know.

"Greg has been kidnapped!" Grissom announced.

"How do we know that?" Sara questioned.

"We got a ransom note," her boss stated. "Where is it by the way?" There was shrugging all around him. "Who has it?"

Suddenly Warrick reached into the pocket of his jeans, taking out a folded piece of paper. He folded it up and read aloud.

"Two million dollar or we'll never see Greg again."

"We have to get him back!" Sara decided, followed by agreeing nods all around.

"Somehow I feel queasy…" Nick started. "And it's unfair… they only asked for one million for…"

"It's over, Nick," Grissom reminded him, and Nick vanished into the background. Catherine came forward instead, clearly willing to take over the commando.

"I want that you find him… dead or alive!" she demanded. Silence followed this announcement, before Warrick cleared his throat.

"Ehm, Cath… I'd rather take alive…" he pointed out.

"Sorry, got carried away there for a moment," the blonde apologized.

"So, what are we going to do now?" Sara wanted to know.

"Pay the ransom?" Warrick suggested.

"I'm off for a minute, have to make a call," Catherine announced, walking off, dialing already a number on her cell phone. "Hi, Sam… long time no talk," she could be heard in the distance while the rest of the team looked at Grissom helplessly.

* * *

Catherine had not been seen again since she had left Grissom's office, so all the team could do was sit and wait. 

"Don't we have something to do? Any traces to process?" Warrick asked Grissom.

"No, right now we are waiting. It adds to the tension."

Warrick nodded understanding. At the other side of the lab Nick found Sara staring into the air, tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Hey, Sara, we're all very worried for Greg, but I'm sure we'll get him back," he tried to calm her.

"For me it's much worse," Sara said. "Now that Greg is gone…" she cried.

"What is then?" Nick asked emphasizing, soothingly.

"Now that Greg is gone…" Sara sobbed. "I will have to marry Grissom!" She walked off crying, while Nick could only watch her leave, still having an off feeling with the whole situation, an uneasy sensation in the back of his mind that he could not quite make out. He looked around nervously, if Grissom was nearby, but sighed with relief when he did not see his boss anywhere.

* * *

Grissom was sitting in his office in the meantime, browsing several big books about insects, from time to time giving his favorite bug that was sitting on his desk a loving stroke. When he reached the chapter about larvae, an idea was dawning on Grissom, and he knew that it could be Greg's rescue. 

**TBC…**

_Up next:_

_What is Grissom's great plan? What is Catherine doing the whole time? Is Sara's fate really sealed?_


	3. Chapter 3

**_Thanks to Emmithar for betareading. :D_**

* * *

**Part 3**

Greg did not really know whether he wanted the team to return or not, but the decision did not lie in his hands anyway, so he could only sigh with relief when the door opened again and light was streaming into the room. Greg had been seriously bored by now.

The whole team minus Catherine walked in.

"Will you let me go now?" Greg asked hopefully, but did not get an answer. "Is anybody searching for me?"

"The graveyard shift is," Warrick told him.

"You are the graveyard shift! Will you free me now?"

Grissom looked at his watch. "No, shift is over."

Greg groaned frustrated. "You are still the same people!"

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts," Grissom cited.

The whole room fell silent in awe, or maybe rather in non-understanding.

At this moment Catherine arrived, carrying a bottle and several boxes.

"I got the ransom money," she said.

"What's that?" Nick inquired, pointing at the things Catherine had brought with her.

"Champagne," she lifted the bottle, "and some delicate bites."

"Shrimp salad, too?" Greg asked eagerly.

Catherine ignored him and continued, "Sam was very generous. He gave me 500,000 extra, if we make sure that Greg doesn't turn up again," she reported. "He said the little DNA boy made too much trouble in the past."

"I don't work in the DNA lab anymore," Greg argued.

He was ignored again, when Nick asked, "What does Sam Braun mean?"

Catherine shrugged smiling. "Years ago Greg found some unlucky connection between a murdered waitress and Sam. Much ado about nothing."

"That would be my part," Grissom interjected.

"What are we going to do with Greg now?" Nick brought the discussion back to the problem at hand.

"We could leave him alone with EvilSara to get him talking," Warrick suggested. Greg looked at Sara who had been surprisingly silent so far and saw that she was wearing a deep frown, a dangerous sign for him that he would indeed be confronted with her bad side, which made him shudder.

"Wasn't the plan to make him shut up?" Catherine pointed out. "What's the plan again, Gil?" she asked, turning to Grissom.

He shrugged. "I don't know."

On that statement loud discussions broke loose.

"Great."

"No plan."

"I'm nervous somehow."

"Grissom the mastermind… what a laugh."

"What about letting me go?" Greg suggested through all the noise.

Grissom shook his head. "No, we'll have to find out how we are going to find you."

"Any ideas?" Nick asked.

Grissom nodded slowly. "We kill him and wait until the larvae come. That will help me figuring out the TOD."

"And how will that help us solving the case?" Sara spoke up now.

"You're too focused on the cases, Sara. You have to find something besides work," Grissom stated, his eyes lighting up in anticipation of the experiment, while Greg struggled desperately to get free.

He screamed and the scream sounded through his bedroom when he woke up, sweating and trembling. Greg cursed quietly, jumping out of his bed then.

"Okay, Sanders, enough is enough," he muttered to himself. "I'll do it as Sara now and will give up on sleeping," he decided. "With all the stuff I'm dreaming about…"

**The End**


End file.
